Republicans were ushered into power in 2010, buoyed by limited government populism spawned by the Tea Party. They publicized a document called the GOP Pledge to America. You should take some time to read it. There are many interesting declarations in there. You’ll find lectures about the need to let the legislative process work; about the 3 day legislative transparency rule; about not spending most of the time on banal suspension bills; about cutting taxes; about getting rid of Obamacare; about cutting spending. Interesting indeed.

Republicans began their session in 2011 promising an immediate cut of $100 billion in spending. They lied. Ultimately, they only cut $352 million off of the FY 2011 budget. How fitting it is for them to end the 112th Congress by increasing spending by $330 billion…along with hiking taxes, letting every aspect of the Obamacare tax hikes slide, and obviating our leverage with the debt ceiling by agreeing to a sequester trap to coincide with the next battle.

Yes, we know…wait until March, and they will really extract concessions from Obama…just like they did $2.1 trillion ago. Except that they have already said they will never “allow us to default,” and they have communicated that fact to the Democrats.

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Sometimes I wonder whether these folks were paying attention when they went to school because few of them seem to understand anything about the way the federal government operates, or what is contained in the bills passed by Congress. One thing I do know is that none of them paid an ounce of attention to any of the things President Obama said when he was campaigning. If they had, they’d know that repealing the tax cuts on the richest Americans was one of the president’s major themes. I’ll just consider these posts as another example of the RW’s epistemic closure problem.